Environmentalist League for Psionic Harmony (ELPH)
The great project of our time must be to open the other eye: to see all-sidedly and wholly, to heal and transcend the cleavage between humanity and nature that came with early wisdom. - X (TBD) Summary The Environmentalist League for Psychic Harmony (ELPH) is a covert syndicate of ex-students with MES who left the Psychic Academy to join the UPC's revolutionary cause. United around a fanatic concern for the natural environment of all planets in the sector, which they believe to be in a state of ongoing crisis due to the endless resource extraction by mega-corporations and imperial houses. They are wholly devoted to this cause and stop at nothing to achieve their goals, risking their own mental and physical well-being without a second though, but they have little interest in actually attaining a position of political power. Instead, members of the ELPH believe only the free association of mankind and the complete dismantling of all human-created technology will help to re-establish a indescribable state of supreme ecologic and spiritual harmony, aka the "Psychic Harmony." Ideological Theory Neo-Buddhism At the center of the ELPH ideology is a fringe religious belief (developed only about a century ago, but built naturally upon the pre-existing religious doctorines of both major religions in the sector) that all planets are living beings, and their spirit reaches out from the planet's core to connect with to the spirit of every living on the surface. When the body dies the spirit simply returns to the planet's surface and may eventually be reincarnated into another living being in an ongoing cycle (If the being dies in outer space their soul simply drifts towards the nearest planet). However, this cycle is disturbed by aggressively digging into the planet's surface, emitting pollutants into the air or water, adjusting the chemical balance of the atmosphere, or any other sort of industrial activity which would somehow pollute the environment in a way that is not otherwise natural to the pre-industrial state of the planet. As they understand it this spiritual disruption takes the form of MES, a dangerous imbalance of spiritual energy manifested in one body, subject to violent explosion without careful training and medication. In order to resolve this imbalance they believe any and all industrial constructions must be thoroughly demolished so that mankind can learn to integrate with the natural state of the planet, when this is transformation is completed on a large enough cluster of planets they hope it will bring about the "Psychic Harmony" through which the spirits of the planets will connect across space, children will no longer be born with MES, but all living beings born in the harmony will inherit a shared, non-verbal telepathic communication. Green Anarchy and Anti-Imperialism Drawing upon a Marxist understanding of historic materialism, the ELPH claim that the currently existing imperial government was developed to manage and protect the highly advanced human industry that is used to create spaceships, construct buildings, terraform planets, and so on. However, since these industrial processes are destructive to the environment, the societal structure constructed around them must also be dismantled if the Psychic Harmony is ever to be achieved. Instead they believe returning to a state of hunter-gatherer subsistence and free association will provide the societal conditions necessary to achieve the Psychic Harmony, which will then mend all conflicts in society through the power of universal telepathy. E.L.P.H. Perspective on sentient, non-human entities In direct opposition to the High Church, ELPHs are extremely accepting of alien beings in the sector and deeply regret the early genocidal conflict that killed and displaced the aliens (although the ELPH and their neo-buddhist religious beliefs had not been developed at that time). They believe many of the technologically primitive and indigenous alien species may have been in a state Psychic Harmony before the presence of Humans and human industry in the sector, and thus only by reaching psychic harmony themselves may humanity be able to finally reconcile their differences with the aliens and live together in peace. However, they are also in conflict with the perspective of the Church of Humanity, Repentant in that they absolutely detest the presence of synthetic life. These atrocious constructs are seen as a pure manifestation of human industrial aspiration and through their very existence create a barrier to achieving the Psychic Harmony as they have no connection whatsoever with the spirit of the planets and rely upon spiritually disruptive industrial processes to survive and reproduce. Furthermore, since they were invented and constructed by the nobles of House Cygnus thus their unconscious motives should not be trusted, in fact most ELPHs are convinced the synth uprising is an inevitability so long as synths are allowed to congregate freely. For the time being they maintain an uneasy alliance with the pro-synth organizations of the UPC, but to avoid any possibility of synth infiltration they restrict all their membership to those with MES, and they expect if the revolution is ever successful and the imperial government is dismantled, the next step is to go planet to planet and kill every last synthetic lifeform in existence (utilizing the assistance of all people born with MES to achieve this goal). Revolutionary Praxis Internal organization The ELPH has very few organizing principles, all of which are used to maintain their secretive tight-knit MES-exclusive membership. Technically they have no leadership either, maintaining strict equality through their belief in absolute equality among the spirit, and relying upon popular consensus to make all their decisions (only doing what everyone agrees to do). They meet once every month to discuss and make any necessary decisions before dispersing again throughout the common populace, and usually they only grow their numbers and popularity through word-of-mouth. Revolutionary strategy Believing firmly in the potential of spontaneous insurrection by the disorganized masses, ELPH operatives are often far less concerned with actually building working class power and organization, instead opting quite infamously to commit sudden acts of "propaganda by deed" (most would consider them acts of terrorism) which are meant to inspire other radicals among the working class to also commit similar "heroic deeds" against their imperialist oppressors. Assassinating politicians, suicide bombings on oil extractors, destroying starships full of valuable cargo and so on. Their psychic capabilities make them particularly dangerous as they can strike and disappear without a trace. However as much they claim to target only those who deserve it (pretty much just nobles and CEOs) they've had a few instances in the past where a couple unknowing bystanders were also killed in the sudden violence, giving them a very contentious relationship with the working class as a whole. Of course some of these terrorist attacks were not even committed by the ELPH, but from the perspective of the Psychic academy for instance any sort of violence can be safely pinned on "the organized religious extremists hell-bent on destroying society as we know it." As a part of their recent affiliation with the UPC they have more or less stopped committing this type of spontaneous and uncoordinated violence, but you can more or less expect every proposal brought to the floor by the ELPH to be as risky as it is bloodthirsty, much to dismay of more moderate and nonviolent groups within the party, however they are still a valuable asset to the UPC as a whole. Medical treatment and MES research For as capable as they are at sudden blowing things up, the ELPH has a much more practical role as trained and experienced medical professionals. Comprised of almost exclusively ex-students of the psychic academy, all with MES, they maintain plenty of necessary underground connections to receive medical equipment and the technical skill to heal up revolutionaries injured in the line of duty. Much of their time not spent plotting or smashing is spent experimenting with weird plant and animal extracts from all across the sector to try and develop an alternative to the medicine owned by House Serpens capable of treating the deadly side effects of untreated MES, although thus far the vast majority of successful discoveries have been some type of dangerous poison. Naturally they test most of these drugs on themselves (or alternatively on their political opponents) keeping very detailed but disorganized and convoluted notes to constantly build on the scientific discoveries of their colleges. As you might expect the end result is many of the revolutionaries being remarkably high most of the time, or at least in a very peculiar state of mind, and this is doubly true when they're actually trying to accomplish something